Congrats! Nice looking car, and it seems you got it for a pretty good price. I've had my 2000 996 for almost eight years and it's been my Daily Driver. It has 157,000 miles on it right now and still runs and looks great. They are pretty easy to work on, so I do almost all of my own maintenance.
Yes, the clutch can be tricky, for sure. I've driven manual gearbox cars and trucks my whole driving life (34 years of driving), and I used to stall my 996 so often in the first six months, you'd think I'd never driven one.
The hood latch on your '99 (as it is on my 2000) is purely mechanical. It's a cable directly to the latch. The later cars went with an electric latch.
Enjoy the car.
